User blog:TomNamikaze/Comeback - Reviewing CLE
It's been well over a year since I was last active here. If people remember me, I used to make reviews for the CLE episodes. However, I stopped doing them as stuff happened and I simply stopped feeling like posting more reviews. Then the hiatus came along and I sort of just disconnected from Code Lyoko. Recently I decided to check on it again and surprise surprise, the season had ended. So... since I didn't make reviews for each episode, I'll make a review for the season as a whole. Without further ado, let's go. Let's start with what I liked. The fact that they went with a previously unexplored plot point was very good. It could've been handled better, but it was still pleasing to see it. I also liked that there is a sort of three-way battle going on, but we never really got to see it unfold really. Seeing Anthea brought into the plot and the plot twist involving her and Tyron was good too. I also liked the evolution of the relationship between Ulrich and William. I thought they were going to pull the love rivals crap and have them be complete as*holes with each other, but to my pleasant surprise, they actually went the other way. It was really satisfying seeing these two acting as real friends. The acting was, for the most part, good. At first, certain actors and actresses were struggling with their roles, but as the show went on, you could see that they got used to it and it came out more naturally. There were still problems, which sometimes compromised the scenes, but I am willing to let it go. My favorite performances were Odd's and Jim's, oh boy do they stay faithful to their characters. What I didn't like was... Laura. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I disliked her character in itself, but the way she was handled was not the best. It was really confusing seeing her being friends with the LW in one episode, and then be at odds with them in the next. This actually led me to believe the episodes were out of order. It was particularly jarring that in one episode we get a friendship moment between her and Aelita, and in all of the other episodes they were complete b*tches to each other. I also found the way that she was excluded from the LW particularly abrupt and clunky. She was excluded from the climax and they pulled a really cheap trick to get her to "help" the bad guys. Either have the guts of making her a villain (with the friction she had with the LW) or don't make her help the bad guys at all. The ending of the season was particularly unsatisfying as things were starting to get interesting and it just ended. I also found the shutting down of the supercomputer a bit nonsensical, because even if the virus is in Tyron's supercomputer, it was also stated that he could very well prepare for it while it was shut down. So leaving the Lyoko supercomputer on would allow them to know when Tyron reactivated his. There is also a problem that I would like to adress when it comes to the Lyoko part of the show. What is with the life points of the LW? Aelita was getting one-shotted almost every episode. Heck, everyone except William was getting one-shotted. And then I see William taking up to 7 hits before being devirtualized. What the hell is this? Does William have over 9000 life points or something? Or do the others only have 1 life point? Also... Jeremie... You STILL didn't make a backup for the Skid? Jeremie, listen to me... Are you stupid? With all the crap the Skid had to go through, you didn't bother to make a second copy? What the hell? I can get over the nonsense that they call "programming" in the series, since the writers probably don't know anything about programming... But this? This is inexcusable! How come a genius like Jeremie NEVER makes backups for the stuff they have to use? This has nothing to do with programming. This is common sense! Ugh... And I take Tyron is actually Alan Meyer? Cuz I heard nothing about that dude... Finally, I'll address the romance... cuz it is a thing in the show, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't care about it. I'll take this opportunity to talk about some characters too. So they brought Samantha back for... no reason...? She was there sometimes so Odd would get all embarrased and stuff, but honestly I didn't see an actual reason for her return. She didn't have much characterization, and as a result we're left with what we know from the animated episodes. It would be nice to see that she likes Odd too, as it was shown in the first series, but here... Meh... Sissi was... underused. I mean, she was bugging Ulrich and pissing off Yumi 99% of the time. Here she appeared in like 3 episodes? And didn't even do much of anything in either of those episodes. Ulrich x Yumi was done okay. Nothing really spectacular. As expected these two get pissed off at each other for the smallest of reasons, that's how jealous they are. William seems to have stepped down? Or maybe it's just because he and Ulrich are cool now. It's hard to know really... Jeremie x Aelita was actually done pretty well. I was really happy to see that they kept almost all of this romance towards the end of the season. And the scenes always put a smile on my face. It was refreshing to see the Aelita side of the relationship. Before we just had that Jeremie liked Aelita very much, and sure we saw reciprocation from her but not to the extent we saw in this season. While it was funny to see the moments in which Aelita just bluntly showed she reciprocated Jeremie's feelings (in particular the scene at the end of XANA's Kiss), it was really good to see just how much she really likes him. I think this was one of the purposes Laura was brought in, and perhaps one of the reasons Aelita and Laura were always being b*tches to each other (sorry but I really can't find another word for that). Overall, I liked CLE, and I hope we get a new season. While the feeling to it was a bit different from the animated series, I think they did a good job with what they had. It seems obvious that the series hasn't ended here. We still have major plot threads to tie. Hopefully the problems with this season are corrected for the next one. Category:Blog posts